Show Notes
The Well-Tempered Clavier …what does it actually imply? In this episode I seek (in 18 minutes) to demonstrate mathematically pure intervals, alongside ‘tempered’ intervals. The circle of fifths is in fact a spiral of fifths— it is infinite. We seek to make it a circle for convenience, but this means that the distance between what would be mathematically pure intervals must be altered (!) in order to force the spiral into a circle. The question remains: how do we do that? Music today is heard in equal temperament, where all keys, all tonalities sound the same. Pure intervals have been forced into identical ‘impure’ ones— convenient, but this deprives us not only of a beautiful natural simplicity, but also the individual character of each key found in unequal temperaments. From the earliest European music, numerous solutions to this immortal problem have been offered. By the time Bach arrives, his solution, laid out for us in The Well-Tempered Clavier, is certainly an elegant one…but we don’t quite know exactly what it is. The remainder of the episode analyzes the prelude and fugue, no. 13, in F-sharp major, BWV 858. A look at the opening of the prelude in earliest version offers lovely insights into Bach’s working mind: In revision Bach changes the repeated note — a recognizable motif of the early version— into a trill, now acting as its own motif: Particularly fascinating is the way Bach changes the harmonic rhythm from the early version here, bar 17: Now again from measure 17 in the revision. Bach inserts two full bars, extending the harmonic length of g# minor and C# Major: “Thank Bach for God.”
A huge thanks to Bradly Lehman for helping preparing this episode. I haven’t even scratched the surface of what his work covers, but hopefully you’ve got some idea how deep the topic of tuning can go. Lehman has some great online resources illuminating the fascinating world of temperament. For starters, try: www.larips.com (Spiral spelled backward) Dig deeper with this essay here, published by the Reimenschneider Bach Institute: And finally, more Articles and Essays by Bradley Lehman Want to help this resource? Here’s how: We encourage our listeners to become a paid subscriber atwtfbach.substack.comFree subscriptions are also beneficial for our stats. You can make a one-time donation: https://www.paypal.me/wtfbachhttps://venmo.com/wtfbach Supporting this show ensures its longevity. Thank you for your support! Concepts Covered: Pure vs tempered intervals, ‘spiral of fifths,’ vs. the circle of fifths, equal temperament, loss of key character, Bradly Lehman temperament, historical tuning systems, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, temperament and tuning, F-sharp major Prelude and Fugue No. 13, Bach’s compositional revisions, and BWV 858
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The music at the end is BWV 600, from a forthcoming ‘electrified’ arrangement of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. The beautiful passage toward the end of my rant— with the koto accompaniment and bird song— comes from one of my absolute favorite books: R.H. Blythe’s writings about Haiku. Blyth considered the three greatest geniuses of time to be Basho, Bach, and Shakespeare— in that order! Wow! What am I missing with Basho!? More than a podcast. This is WTF Bach.
Volume 6 in ‘J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works’ is on presale today! Here are the relevant links: * J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works, Vol. 6 - Arrangements of Albinoni and Reincken(https://modernclassicalx.lnk.to/JSBachCompleteKeyboardWorksVol6FromArrangementsofAlbinoniandReincken) I might call this volume a ‘headphones album’ or perhaps one to listen to in the car: The sonic space shifts throughout the course of these pieces. I describe this process in depth in the episode, but essentially each track is two recordings of the piece, playing simultaneously: one recording is the original live performance, while another is that very same performance, played back through the Disklavier with the dynamics flatlined— as if the piano keyboard were incapable of dynamics — like a harpsichord. The two recordings were then ‘live panned’ during the mixing according to my feeling for the music. The result, while perhaps less extreme than this all sounds, is certainly a noticeable phenomenon, especially in headphones or seated between two speakers as in a car. But enough about that, let’s get to the music. Fugue it:
We’ve now covered the seven surviving earliest vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach! This episode is a brief tour through the episodes we dedicated to these pieces, refreshing our memories and attempting to identify unifying stylistic features. All the episodes covering the Arnstadt/Mülhausen cantatas can be found at:https://wtfbach.substack.com/t/early-cantatas Wanna Cantata?
“The consummate expressiveness of {BWV 4] has always been marvelled at. Each verse is as if chiselled in music.” -Albert Schweitzer, Vol. 2 Bach’s early Easter cantata remains one of the most beloved in the entire canon. Barely 22 years old, he is already in full command of his tone-painting. Here are three measures particularly packed with symbolism: Filling the music with rests at the word nothing, ‘one death eating another’ through the closest possible canon, crosses both in shape and every note ‘sharped’ (gekreuzt,) dripping blood on the Passover doors with short 8th notes, leaping a diminished 12th (!) in the bass aria at the word death, this cantata is a dictionary of text painting. …und singen Halleluja!
Sometimes an article from the EB strikes me as so amusing, I simply have to share it with you. See you next week (or the week after, latest) for the conclusion of our early cantata survey, with Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. Thanks for listening! Well, That’s Fascinating!